Power Dam Easy Loop- Cornwall Ontario

Great for a walk with the family and dog. A few caches on the way. Great for snowshoeing. Theres an old foundation with some history. Be sure to not travel alone just in case shes still roaming around. Her name is Margaret Sophia Groves.

Margaret Sophia Groves, a farmer's daughter, was born in the house that sat on these foundations in 1832, in a love story that defies words, she had four funerals, two caskets, and three burials. .Margaret Sophia married John Angus "Cariboo" Cameron, 12 yrs older than her but who was to become a local legend and made a fortune in the goldfields of British Columbia. The voyage to B.C.via Panama was long and arduous and the Camerons set out with their 4-month-old daughter Alice. Within a week of arriving in Victoria, Margaret Sophia became ill and never recovered. Mrs. Cameron died at 3 a.m. on October 23, 1862, in Richfield, B.C., on an abnormally cold morning with temperatures in the -30 range with howling galeforce winds. Only 97 people of the 5000 at the mining town remained for the funeral. Her body was placed in a tin casket inside a wooden coffin and buried temporarily under an abandoned cabin in Richfield but John Cameron vowed he would carry out her last wish; to be buried at "home" in Cornwall.
Exactly two months later, three days before Christmas, Cameron struck pay dirt, within a couple of months he was a wealthy but grieving man and he decided to head for the coast. With 22 hired men, he journeyed through a wilderness of extreme cold, snowdrifts, dense forest and mountainous terrain, often without a trail, dragging the coffin on an awkward toboggan heaped with blankets, food and 50 lbs of gold. On March 7, 1863, having traveled 600miles, they finally reached their destination. Here Sophia had a well-attended funeral, was preserved in alcohol in preparation for the long voyage back east, and re-buried.

Cameron returned to his claim and worked it from April until October of 1863 and left with eight horses laden with gold, the equivalent of $5 million in today's dollars. Sophia was exhumed and continued on her journey via boat to San Francisco, Panama, and NewYork city, where customs officials were dubious as to the contents of the sealed coffin due to its massive weight. The last leg of the journey home was by rail and Sophia was again buried, in the family plot in Cornwall.
Cameron was generous with his money, giving two of his brother's large sums and buying two farms for another two brothers who had helped him in British Columbia. He built a beautiful estate on the banks of the St Lawrence river at Summerstown and called itFairfield, then married Christianne Woods, the daughter of a respectable local family.
However, rumors continued to grow. Why had John Cameron spent so much effort bringing Sophia back? Some speculated that he had sold her into slavery and the coffin was filled with reserve gold. It wasn't until a New York newspaper printed a story stating that Sophia had escaped slavery and had returned to Fairfield Estate that he summoned her parents and the coffin was exhumed and the alcohol drained. Sophia, preserved in the alcohol, was identified by her parents and laid to rest for the final time in the Salem cemetery near Summerstown, almost next door to the Fairfield estate.